AUGUSTA — Supporters of legislation to ease school vaccine requirements told lawmakers Monday that failing to recognize religious exemptions is government overreach.

But opponents, including the state’s top doctor, said the strict requirements are preventing measles outbreaks like the ones now happening in Texas.

One bill introduced Monday, LD 174, seeks to restore a parent’s right to cite a sincerely held religious belief as a reason for not vaccinating their child. The other, LD 727, would repeal certain vaccinations that are now required for children to attend public or private schools.

“To deny a child the right to an education is nonsensical given the real-world reality of exposure in non-school settings,” said Rep. Tracy Quint (R-Hodgdon) who is sponsoring LD 727.

In response, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Puthiery Va said the vaccine requirements are necessary to keep children safe from preventable diseases such as measles.

“If enacted, Maine will become the only state in the country without school immunization requirements making the state an outlier and significantly increasing the risk of vaccine preventable disease outbreaks,” Va told members of the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee.

The public hearings come amid a worsening measles outbreak in Texas, where two children have died and nearly 500 cases have been reported. Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of the federal department of Health and Human Services, said on the social media platform X on Sunday that there are 642 confirmed cases of measles in 22 states. Most of those are in Texas, which has 499 cases.

He said federal health officials are helping to make sure the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is available.

“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy wrote on X.

At the Monday hearing, Rep. Gary Drinkwater (R-Milford) said he was back for a third time to “restore civil rights.”

“Children have been stripped of their civil rights by the state for three years, seven months, seven days and counting,” he said.

In 2020, Maine voters upheld a law that eliminated philosophical and religious exemptions for mandated childhood vaccines. Physicians can still grant medical exemptions.

Drinkwater said he’s not anti-vaccine, but that he thinks current law goes too far.

“I agree, you know, your child should get the measles shot, absolutely, but it should the parents’ decision not the school’s decision to say you can’t come to school,” he said.

On the other side of the issue, Caitlin Gilmet, director of Maine Families for Vaccines, said she first got involved when her infant got chicken pox while attending day care.

She said it opened her eyes to the need to protect those who are too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

“This is really just a common sense, public health protection,” she said. “My organization, which runs 11 Families for Vaccines chapters, is monitoring thousands of anti-vaccine bills across the nation.”